


after hours

by himemiyaa



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Light Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2020-11-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:40:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27464314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/himemiyaa/pseuds/himemiyaa
Summary: Neither Adora nor Catra could be described asgood sleepers,but fortunately enough for them their nightmares tend to miss each other. Or perhaps unfortunately, given that it means (almost without fail) that the one who wakes up shaking and silent and sweating is left alone to deal with it.
Relationships: Adora/Catra (She-Ra)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 50





	after hours

Neither Adora nor Catra could be described as _good sleepers,_ but fortunately enough for them their nightmares tend to miss each other. Or perhaps unfortunately, given that it means (almost without fail) that the one who wakes up shaking and silent and sweating is left alone to deal with it.

Adora hates to wake Catra, you see; she knows she never rests, knows her brain runs incessantly and frantically even months after everything. She knows Catra needs the sleep. On the other hand, Catra hates for Adora to see her like that. She doesn't want the vulnerability and considers it something of a blessing to be able to collect herself alone in the dark without bearing the weight of interrupting Adora's sleep with something as stupid as a dream.

She lies there staring at the still-somehow-unfamiliar Brightmoon ceiling and squeezing her palms, pressing blunted, filed nails into them, no longer sharp enough to draw blood without trying and so leaving only indentions in her skin. Adora sleeps like a rock for the most part, so once in a while she breaks her paralysis to scoot closer, bury her face in Adora's shoulder (or armpit) wrap her arms around her sleeping body and wait for Adora like she's waiting for the earth to move: with the agonizing slowness of tectonic plates, Adora wraps her broad arms around Catra and bumps their shins together as she moves to hold on.

Of course, when Adora wakes up she doesn't freeze — she's not much of a freezer these days — but jolts upright and reaches instinctively for her blade before remembering it's by the door now. Not so urgent when you're not as likely to face an ambush. So she sighs and runs her hands over her face and then looks down at Catra, who snores in soft little triads of sound. She reaches down gently to trace a path between the freckles on Catra's cheek with her thumb. Catra wrinkles her nose without fail, reaches up to bat at Adora's hand and mumbles something unintelligible. It makes Adora smile. Sometimes that's enough.

When it isn't she rises from their bed and walks to the window, staring up at the stars, tracing those patterns in the air with her finger instead. She does it until she can barely keep her eyes open, until she's already sunken into an armchair wrapped with soft silky fabric. Sometimes she drags herself back across the room; just as often she wakes up in the armchair with Catra having left a cup of tea by her side.

Half of Catra's worst dreams are, after all, about being thrown out of the city (after all her work and sacrifice and heart she still _worries_ ) or worse, and so she burrows deeper into the covers and doesn't, cannot, will not get up until the sun has risen and with it Adora and the two of them can go eat breakfast together. The tiny trail of drool at the corner of Adora's lip and the pool on the pillow between them — it used to drive Catra up the wall. As children she found it distasteful. Funny that now it's a symbol of peace.


End file.
